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Denis Law (born February 24 1940, in Aberdeen,
Scotland, United Kingdom) is a retired
Scotland|Scottish Football (soccer)|football
player, who enjoyed a long and successful career
as a striker from the 1950s to the 1970s.  

His career began at Second Division Huddersfield
Town F.C.|Huddersfield Town in 1956. After four
years Manchester City F.C.|Manchester City signed
him for a new British record transfer fee of
£55,000.  He spent one year there before Torino
Calcio|Torino bought him for £110,000, setting a
new record fee for a transfer between an English
and an Italian club.  Although he played well, he
found it difficult to settle in Italy and signed
for Manchester United F.C.|Manchester United in
1962, setting another British record transfer fee
of £115,000.

He is best known for the eleven years that he
spent at United, where he scored 236 goals in 409
appearances and was nicknamed The Kingref|theking
and The Lawman by supporters.  He won the
prestigious European Footballer of the Year award
in 1964, and helped his club win the Football
League First Division|First Division in 1965 and
1967.  He left United in 1973 and returned to
Manchester City for a season, then represented
Scotland in the wc|1974.  He played for Scotland a
total of 55 times and is still their joint record
goal scorer with 30.ref|jointrec

==Growing up==
Law was the son of a fisherman and the youngest of
seven children.  He was an Aberdeen F.C.|Aberdeen
supporter, and would go and watch them when he had
enough money to do so, watching local non-league
teams when he didn't.  His obsession with football
led to him turning down a place at grammar school,
as he would have had to play rugby there instead. 
Despite having a serious Strabismus|squint, he
showed great promise once he was moved from full
back to inside-left, and was selected for Scotland
schoolboys.

==Huddersfield Town==
In the 1954/5 season, he was spotted by Archie
Beattie, a scout for Huddersfield Town
F.C.|Huddersfield Town, who invited him to go for
a trial.  When he got there, the manager said,
"The boy's a freak.  Never did I see a less likely
football prospect — weak, puny and
bespectacled."  However, to Law's surprise, they
signed him on 3 April, 1955.  While he was at
Huddersfield, he had an operation to correct his
squint, which greatly enhanced his self
confidence, and meant he no longer had to play
football with one of his eyes closed.ref|eyes

Huddersfield's relegation to what was then the
Football League Second Division|Second Divsion
made it easier for Law to get a game, and he made
his debut on 24 December, 1956, aged only sixteen,
in a 2–0 win over Notts County F.C.|Notts
County.  Manchester United's manager Matt Busby
shortly offered Huddersfield £10,000 for Law, a
lot of money for a footballer at that time, but
the club turned the offer down.  He was not picked
to play for Scotland in the wc|1958, but scored on
his debut against Wales national football
team|Wales on 18 October 1958 and quickly
established himself as a first choice player. Bill
Shankly was manager of Huddersfield between 1957
and 1959, and when he left for Liverpool
F.C.|Liverpool he wanted to take Law with him, but
Liverpool were unable to afford him at that
time.ref|Liv

==Manchester City== 
In March 1960, Law signed for Manchester City
F.C|Manchester City for what was then a British
record transfer fee of £55,000, although Law's
share of the fee was "precisely
nothing".ref|nothing  Although a First Division
side, City had narrowly avoided relegation the
previous season, and he genuinely felt that
Huddersfield had a better team at the
time.ref|betterside  Law made his debut on 19
March, scoring in a 4–3 defeat to Leeds
United F.C.|Leeds United.  In April, he scored two
goals in a 4–1 win over Aston Villa
F.C.|Aston Villa that ensured City's survival in
Division One.  

Although he had thought about leaving,ref|leaving
he was playing well and in 1961 Law scored an
incredible six goals in an FA Cup tie against
Luton Town F.C.|Luton Town.  Unfortunately for
him, the match was abandoned with twenty minutes
to go, so his six goals didn't count. To make
matters worse for him, he scored in the replay but
Luton won the match, and City were out of the Cup.
 

He played but did not score in Scotland's match
against England national football team|England on
15 April1961.  Scotland lost the match 9–3,
and Law described it as his "blackest
day".ref|blackestday The following November, Law
represented the Football League in a match against
the Serie A|Italian League, losing 4–2.  

Although he enjoyed his time at
City,ref|enjoyedcity he wanted to play in a more
successful side and was sold to the Italian club
Torino Calcio|Torino in the summer of 1961.

==Torino==
Law's time in Italy may not have gone according to
plan, but it was eventful from start to finish. 
As soon as he arrived, Internazionale tried to
prevent him becoming a Torino player, claiming he
had signed a pre-contract agreement with them,
although they dropped this claim before the season
started.

Players in the UK were not treated well at the
time, and the maximum wage for footballers had
only recently been abolished there, so he was
pleasantly surprised to find that pre-season
training was based in a luxury hotel in the
Alps|Alps.  However, Torino took
performance-related pay to something of an
extreme, giving the players bags full of money
when the team won but little, if anything, when
they lost.ref|torinopay  Like many British
footballers who have gone to play in Italy, Law
didn't like the style of football and found
adapting to it difficult.  The ultra-defensive
catenaccio system was popular there at the time,
so forwards didn't get many chances to
score.ref|caten  He continued to play for Scotland
while he was at Torino, although the club were not
keen to release him for international matches and
had put a clause into his contract stating that
they were not obliged to do so.  

On 7 February, 1962, he was injured in a car crash
when his teammate Joe Baker drove the wrong way
around a roundabout and clipped the kerb as he
tried to turn the car around, flipping it over. 
Baker was almost killed, but Law's injuries were
not life-threatening.  

By April, he had put in a transfer request, which
was ignored.  The final straw for Denis came in a
match against SSC Napoli|Napoli when he was sent
off.  After the match, he was told that Torino's
coach, Beniamino Santos, had instructed the
referee to send him off because he was angry at
Law for taking a throw in, which he had been told
not to do.ref|santos  Law walked out, and was told
that he would be transferred to Manchester United.
 A few days later, however, he was told that he
was being sold to Juventus and that the small
print in his contract committed him to going there
whether he wanted to or not.  He responded by
flying home to Aberdeen, knowing that Torino
wouldn't get a penny in transfer fees if he
refused to play at Juventus.

He eventually signed for United on 10 July, 1962,
for a new British record fee of £115,000.

==Manchester United==
===The glory years===

Law moved back to Manchester, boarding with the
same landlady that he had lived with during his
time as a City player.  His first match for United
was against West Bromwich Albion F.C.|West
Bromwich Albion on 18 August, 1962, and he made an
excellent start, scoring after only seven minutes.
The match finished in a 2–2 draw.  However,
United's form had been erratic since the Munich
air disaster in 1958, and because of their
inconsistency they spent the season fighting
relegation.  An example of this was a league match
against Leicester City F.C|Leicester City in which
Law scored a hat trick but the team still lost. 
They found form in the FA Cup though, with Law
scoring another hat trick in a 5–0 win
against his old club Huddersfield, and they went
on to reach the final against Leicester City. 
Leicester were strong favourites, having finished
fourth in the league, but Law scored the first
goal as United won 3–1 in what turned out to
be the only FA Cup final of his career.  He also
married his wife Diana that season, on 11 December
1962.

Unfortunately, an incident had taken place that
season which Law felt had repercussions in years
to come.  In a match against West Brom on 15
December, 1962, the referee Gilbert Pullin
consistently goaded Law with taunts such as "Oh,
you clever so and so, you can't play", and after
the match, Law and his manager Matt Busby reported
the matter to the Football
Association.ref|reportedpullin  A disciplinary
committee decided that Pullin should be severely
censured, but he did not accept their verdict and
quit the game.  Law later claimed that "in the
eyes of some referees, Law was a
marked man" and blamed the incident for the
"staggeringly heavy punishments" that he received
later in his career.ref|markedman 

Law scored a lot of goals early in the 1963/4
season and was selected to play for a Rest of the
World side against England national football
team|England at Wembley Stadium|Wembley, scoring
their goal in a 2–1 defeat.  He later
described this as the greatest honour of his
career.ref|greatesthonour  His season was
interrupted by a 28-day suspension for a sending
off that he received against Aston Villa
F.C.|Aston Villa, and the unusually cold winter
forced United to play a lot of fixtures in a short
space of time, and their results suffered.  Law
later blamed this for United's failure to win a
trophy in that season.

In 1964/5, Law won the European Footballer of the
Year award, and Manchester United won their first
league title since Munich. Law's 28 league goals
that season made him the First Division's top
scorer.

The following season, Law injured his right knee
while playing for Scotland against Poland national
football team|Poland on 21 October, 1965.  He had
previously had an operation on the same knee while
at Huddersfieldref|kneehuddersfield, and the
injury was to trouble him for the rest of his
career.

In 1966 Law asked United's manager Matt Busby to
give him a pay rise at his next contract renewal,
and threatened to leave the club if he didn't get
one.  Busby immediately placed Law on the transfer
list, announcing that "no player will hold this
club to ransom, no player".  When Law went to see
him, Busby pulled out a written apology for him to
sign, showing it to the press once he had done
so.ref|apology  Law later claimed that Busby had
used the incident to warn other players not to do
the same thing, but had secretly given him the pay
rise.ref|payrise 

Law scored in Scotland's famous 3–2 victory
over England on 15 April 1967, less than a year
after England had become world champions. 
Manchester United won the league that season, but
Law felt that the victory over England was even
more satisfying.ref|moresatisfying

In 1967/8, United won the European Cup for the
first time, but Law's knee injury was causing him
serious problems and he missed both the semi-final
and the final as a result.  He was regularly given
Corticosteroid|cortisone injections to ease the
pain, but playing while the knee was still injured
was causing long-term damage.  He visited a
specialist in January 1968 who wrote to United
claiming that a previous operation to remove the
cartilage from the knee had failed and
recommending that a second operation be performed,
but Law was not shown the report for several years
and had to continue full
training.ref|surgeonsreport

In 1968/9, United reached the semi-final of the
European Cup, playing AC Milan, but were knocked
out after Law had a goal disallowed.  Busby, who
had now been knighted, resigned at the end of the
season and United's decline began.

===The decline===
Wilf McGuinness took over as first team coach at
the start of the 1969/70 season.ref|guinnesscoach 
 United finished eighth in the league, but Law
missed almost all of the season through injury,
and in April 1970 he was transfer listed for
£60,000.   Nobody made a bid for him, so he
stayed at United.

After a poor 1970/1 season, Frank O'Farrell took
over as United manager. They made a good start to
the 1971/2 season and finished 1971 five points
clear at the top of the league, with Law having
scored twelve goals.  However, results
deteriorated and they finished the season in fifth
place.  Law scored in the first match of the
following season (1972/3), but his knee injury was
troubling him again, and he failed to score for
the rest of the season.  The poor results
continued and O'Farrell was sacked.

Law recommended that United replace O'Farrell with
Tommy Docherty, whom he knew from playing for
Scotland.ref|recommenddoc  The club followed his
recommendation, and things started well with the
team's improved results lifting them into
mid-table.

==Back to Manchester City==

Docherty gave Law a free transfer in the summer of
1973, and he moved back to Manchester City.  He
played in City's 2–1 defeat in the League
Cup final, against Wolverhampton Wanderers
F.C.|Wolves.  In City's last game of the 1973/4
season, Law famously scored a goal against
Manchester United which guaranteed their
relegation from the First Division, only six years
after the European Cup final that he had missed. 
Law's backheel gave City a 1–0 win, but he
was devastated to have relegated United (it turned
out they would have been relegated even if the
match had been drawn, but Law did not know this at
the time) and he did not celebrate the goal,
walking off the pitch with his head down as he was
substituted immediately afterwards.  This turned
out to be the last time he kicked a ball in club
football.

==World Cup 1974==
Scotland reached the Football World Cup|World Cup
finals in 1974, for the first time since 1958. 
Although he had not played much first team
football in the preceding season, Law was included
in the squad and played in their first match,
against Zaire national football team|Zaire.  He
didn't score, but Scotland won 2–0.  Law was
"very disappointed"ref|disapp not to be picked for
the following match against Brazil national
football team|Brazil, and was not selected for the
following match against Yugoslavia national
football team|Yugoslavia either.  Although
Scotland were not defeated in any of their
matches, they did not qualify for the second phase
and were out of the World Cup.

==Return home==
Law still had a contract with Manchester City, but
their manager Tony Book told him that he would
only be playing reserve team football if he stayed
there.  He did not want to end his career in this
way,ref|noreserve so he retired from professional
football in the summer of 1974.

==After football==
Since retiring as a footballer, Law has often
worked as a summarist for radio and television. 
As of July 2005, he is still married to Diana, and
they still live in the Manchester area.  They have
five children, and their daughter, also called
Diana, works as a press officer for Manchester
United.

On 23 February, 2002, a statue of Law was unveiled
at Old Trafford (football)|Old Trafford, in the
part of the stadium known as the Stretford
End.ref|statue  He had a successful operation to
treat prostate cancer in November 2003ref|prostate
and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the
University of Aberdeen on 5 July
2005.ref|doctorate

==Career summary==

Clubs:
*Huddersfield Town F.C.|Huddersfield Town
(1956–1960)
*Manchester City F.C.|Manchester City
(1960–1961)
*Torino Calcio|Torino (1961–1962)
*Manchester United F.C.|Manchester United
(1962–1973)
*Manchester City F.C.|Manchester City
(1973–1974)

Honours:
*FA Cup (1963)
*Football League Championship (1965, 1967)
*European Footballer of the Year (1964)
(Law was a Manchester United player when the team
won the European Cup in 1968, but he missed the
match through injury).

==Club appearances and goals by season==
In all competitions:

{| prettytable
!Season!!Club!!align="center"|Appearances!!Goals
|-
|1956-57||Huddersfield Town F.C.|Huddersfield
Town||18||3
|-
|1957-58||Huddersfield Town F.C.|Huddersfield
Town||20||6
|-
|1958-59||Huddersfield Town F.C.|Huddersfield
Town||26||2
|-
|1959-60||Huddersfield Town F.C.|Huddersfield
Town||27||8
|-
|1959-60||Manchester City F.C.|Manchester
City||7||2
|-
|1960-61||Manchester City F.C.|Manchester
City||43||21
|-
|1961-62||Torino Calcio|Torino||27||10
|-
|1962-63||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||44||29
|-
|1963-64||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||41||45
|-
|1964-65||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||52||39
|-
|1965-66||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||48||24
|-
|1966-67||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||38||25
|-
|1967-68||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||27||9
|-
|1968-69||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||36||21
|-
|1969-70||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||20||12
|-
|1970-71||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||34||16
|-
|1971-72||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||41||13
|-
|1972-73||Manchester United F.C.|Manchester
United||12||3
|-
|1973-74||Manchester City F.C.|Manchester
City||26||12
|-
|TOTAL|| ||587||300
|}

==References==


#note|theking Denis Law and Ron Gubba, Denis Law
– An Autobiography (London: Futura
Publications, 1980), 8.
#note|jointrec Kenny Dalglish also scored 30 goals
for Scotland, although he achieved this in 102
matches compared with Law's 55.
#note|eyes Denis Law and Bob Harris, The King (New
York: Bantam Press, 2003), 29.
#note|Liv Ibid., 44.
#note|nothing Ibid., 52.
#note|betterside Ibid., 53.
#note|leaving Ibid., 54.
#note|blackestday Ibid., 112.
#note|enjoyedcity Ibid., 55.
#note|torinopay Ibid., 67.
#note|caten Ibid., 68.
#note|santos Ibid., 80.
#note|reportedpullin Denis Law – An
Autobiography, 67.
#note|markedman Ibid., 68.
#note|greatesthonour Ibid., 74.
#note|kneehuddersfield The King,164.
#note|apology Ibid., 170.
#note|payrise Ibid., 170–171.
#note|moresatisfying Ibid., 178.
#note|surgeonsreport Ibid., 189.
#note|guinnesscoach Ibid., 208.
#note|recommenddoc Ibid., 217.
#note|disapp Ibid., 108.
#note|noreserve Denis Law – An
Autobiography, 162.
#note|statue Web reference | title=Denis Law
statue unveiled|work=Article on official
Manchester United website|
URL=http://www.manutd.com/news/fullstory.sps?iNews
id=13552&itype=466&icategoryid=123| date=June 25 
| year=2005
#note|prostate Web reference | title=How I beat
prostate cancer: Denis Law|work=Article on
Manchester Online|
URL=http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/75/75
499_how_i_beat_prostate_cancer_denis_law_.html|
date=June 25  | year=2005
#note|doctorate Web reference | title=Law will not
judge Glazers yet|work=Article on Manchester
Online|
URL=http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/sport/footba
ll/manchesterunited/s/164/164783_law_will_not_judg
e_glazers_yet.html| date=July 8| year=2005



==Bibliography==
* Book reference | Author=Denis Law, Ron Gubba |
Title=Denis Law - An Autobiography |
Publisher=Futura Publications| Year=1980| ID=ISBN
0-7088-1902-8
* Book reference | Author=Denis Law, Bob Harris|
Title=The King | Publisher=Bantam Press|
Year=2003| ID=ISBN 0-593-05140-8

start box
succession box|title=European Footballer of the
Year|before=Lev Yashin |after=Eusebio|years=1964
end box